A little bit of a rant, I suppose. Most may not agree or take this the wrong way. However; it must be said.
A little background: I have been accepted into a College of pharmacy. It is not top tier or bottom tier. The university is pretty famous, but the pharmacy school is a little above average and very affordable.
Rant:
As I was doing my undergrad, I visited pharmacy schools that spat out assurances such as that they will be lowering the bar pcat score (or even getting rid of it, simply requiring whatever score), lowering the gpa requirement to 2.75 (or so), or disregarding failed undergrad courses. I am not sure about the requirements for other schools, but i'm sure that if the average schools i visited were proposing this, other schools in the country were too.
Now i know there are plenty of applicants whom have worked in pharmacy since they were in high school as techs or people with a lot of experience in health care that simply wan't to move up (and schools are taking this into consideration), but these pre-academic standards should remain high. Especially given the saturation problem.
The debate that pins those succeeding academically vs. those only with a loaded resumé - to see who is more qualified, can go on forever. But, one thing i have seen with the Pre-health students (in general) is that they always want to "get over the sciences and go into the health-care". These are your pamphlet reciting students that do it only for the resumé and barely get by in the sciences. They often whine about being very tired and get irritated when a science student "tries too hard". I stress that i talk about general pre-health students because i know some health fields really aren't too concerned about science, but they are rooted in science and should only contain high quality science-literate people.
I believe that standards should be high across the board. Pharmacy schools should only consider GPAs higher than a 3.0 and PCATs with a 70% or higher. Trash the pre-requisite only system (schools may still have courses they want to see on your transcript) and only accept those with a bachelor's degree in a science. I am not saying that these are the only things one must have to be considered; as with all jobs, one must communicate effectively and all that basic stuff. Much more people can have just that. But when you can have those with all that and a proper education, standards are higher.
A little background: I have been accepted into a College of pharmacy. It is not top tier or bottom tier. The university is pretty famous, but the pharmacy school is a little above average and very affordable.
Rant:
As I was doing my undergrad, I visited pharmacy schools that spat out assurances such as that they will be lowering the bar pcat score (or even getting rid of it, simply requiring whatever score), lowering the gpa requirement to 2.75 (or so), or disregarding failed undergrad courses. I am not sure about the requirements for other schools, but i'm sure that if the average schools i visited were proposing this, other schools in the country were too.
Now i know there are plenty of applicants whom have worked in pharmacy since they were in high school as techs or people with a lot of experience in health care that simply wan't to move up (and schools are taking this into consideration), but these pre-academic standards should remain high. Especially given the saturation problem.
The debate that pins those succeeding academically vs. those only with a loaded resumé - to see who is more qualified, can go on forever. But, one thing i have seen with the Pre-health students (in general) is that they always want to "get over the sciences and go into the health-care". These are your pamphlet reciting students that do it only for the resumé and barely get by in the sciences. They often whine about being very tired and get irritated when a science student "tries too hard". I stress that i talk about general pre-health students because i know some health fields really aren't too concerned about science, but they are rooted in science and should only contain high quality science-literate people.
I believe that standards should be high across the board. Pharmacy schools should only consider GPAs higher than a 3.0 and PCATs with a 70% or higher. Trash the pre-requisite only system (schools may still have courses they want to see on your transcript) and only accept those with a bachelor's degree in a science. I am not saying that these are the only things one must have to be considered; as with all jobs, one must communicate effectively and all that basic stuff. Much more people can have just that. But when you can have those with all that and a proper education, standards are higher.